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Saturday, November 25th, 2006
From Against the Day: I am really liking this line, from p. 41: "Many people believe that there is a mathematical correlation between sin, penance, and redemption. More sin, more penance, and so forth. Our own point has always been that there is no connection. All the variables are independent. You do penance not because you have sinned but because it is your destiny. You are redeemed not through doing penance but because it happens. Or doesn't happen. "It's nothing supernatural. Most people have a wheel riding up on a wire, or some rails in the street, some kind of guide or groove, to keep them moving in the direction of their destiny. But you keep bouncing free. Avoiding penance and thereby definition." It is Drave, leader of the order which Lew Basnight has just joined/drifted into, telling him not to expect forgiveness to come out of the works he is doing. I am still finding the narrative voice kind of jarring and thinking it sounds more like a parody than like Pynchon's authentic voice. But against that, I'm really enjoying the story being told.
posted morning of November 25th, 2006: Respond
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Friday, November 24th, 2006
I am finding the frontspiece of Against the Day a little mysterious: "It's always night, or we wouldn't need light."
-- Thelonious Monk Any one have information that will help me place this in context and make sense of it? Drop me a line.
 Update -- here is a transcription by Steve Lacy of some advice from Monk, including "It must be always night, otherwise they wouldn't need lights."
posted evening of November 24th, 2006: Respond
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I've been looking forward for a couple of months to Pynchon's new novel. And here it is! I just started it this morning and am sort of curious as to whether I'm reading the story of the novel or the story of another work that is contained within the novel -- and whether the narrating voice is Pynchon's or a character's. I'm leaning towards the latter (presumably I'll find out soon enough) -- the first chapter is reading a bit like a parody of what somebody critical of post-modern fiction might expect a new book by Pynchon to sound like.
posted afternoon of November 24th, 2006: Respond
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Wednesday, November 15th, 2006
A new Moomin book arrived today -- it is the newly published Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip, Book One. Sylvia and I looked at the first story, "Moomin and the Brigands", this evening -- I was impressed by how well Sylvia is reading -- this was her first experience with hyphens but she seemed to get it pretty well after I explained. Here is a preview of the book. Just beautiful artwork -- the dialog (in the first few pages at any rate) is not as interesting as it is in the books though.
posted evening of November 15th, 2006: Respond
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Saturday, October 21st, 2006
I have been doing some posting at Coming out of the Cave, the blog I've established to try and unravel Blumenberg's Höhlenausgänge. So go read there if you're interested in it. (I would be putting up another post but Blogger is not cooperating right now.)
posted evening of October 21st, 2006: Respond
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Thursday, October 12th, 2006
Blumenberg's Höhlenausgänge was just now brought to mind by something Teofilo said. Now I'm really interested and want to go back and look at it some more. Update: I got in touch with a philosopher at Texas Women's University who has done some work on Blumenberg. He recommends I look at the first section of The Genesis of the Copernican World and the material on gnosticism in Part II of The Legitimacy of the Modern Age as an already-translated source for Blumenberg's ideas about the city as a recapitulation of the cave. Update: I have started a new blog: Coming out of the Cave, dedicated to understanding Höhlenausgänge.
posted morning of October 12th, 2006: Respond
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Steadman uses as an epigram for The Joke's Over, a bit of advice Thompson gave him: "Ralph, never write. You'll bring shame on your family." And to tell the truth, his writing is a bit uneven. There are bits that seem hackneyed and trite. Other parts however are keenly insightful, and his artistic vision (and the interesting events being described) make up for the uneven prose quality.
posted morning of October 12th, 2006: Respond
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Wednesday, October 11th, 2006
I stopped in at Coliseum Books last night, to savor the short remaining time before it closes. One of the "staff picks" is Ralph Steadman's new book, The Joke's Over: Bruised Memories: Gonzo, Hunter S. Thompson and Me. I picked it up and was immediately blown away by Kurt Vonnegut's brief preface -- I had never realized he was friends with Steadman and Thompson though it makes good sense. I've been reading about Steadman's meeting with Thompson at the Kentucky Derby of 1970. Lots of laughs so far but objectionably little illustration -- I want to see the drawings he is describing. (He says the editor of Scanlan's lost them.)
posted morning of October 11th, 2006: Respond
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Tuesday, September 26th, 2006
I finished The Autograph Man today and found the ending very powerful. And let me just say that based on the two books I've read so far, Ms. Smith is the queen of the loose thread. There are so many bits of unresolved sub-plot as you get to the end, you cannot help but think there's no way these are all going to be wrapped up in any way approaching verisimilitude -- and feel a wave of relief at the end, when many are just left hanging. It does not feel willy-nilly either -- the threads that are left open are the ones best suited to keep the story in your consciousness a while longer, thinking about how it could move forward past the closing scenes.
posted evening of September 26th, 2006: Respond
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Friday, September 22nd, 2006
I really like the pacing of The Autograph Man -- the movement can be furiously fast but at the same time you feel a kind of deliberation on the author's part, a conscious movement through the story -- the connections undergirding the text feel like the beams of a building's skeleton.
posted afternoon of September 22nd, 2006: Respond
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